Big Eyed Bird goes 3-D

A paper craft challenge was announced on Craftster.org that involved using music sheets in any project of your choice as long as the music sheets were an integral part of the project itself. I though about doing something but couldn't come up with anything. So of course when I decide to work on something else inspiartion comes along and whacks me with a big old stick. I'm up til almost 11 o'clock on a friday night starting on my project. It involved a really cool looking rusted metal "thing" I found about 5 years ago, had to have but didn't know why. I broke out my brand new bag of Celluclay, another had to have but didn't know why, hehe...see a pattern here?

I learned alot about working with Celluclay when I woke up the next morning and my "piece" was just as wet as it was the night before. Knowing I still had lots of sculpting to do as well as lots of painting and whatnot and have it posted by the Sunday deadline I started to panic a bit. It barely fit in the oven with both shelves taken out...whew!

This is my entry, based on my ever popular (who knew) big eyed bird:

Here's a close up of his music sheet wings.I painted him to look grungy which considering how lumpy I left the Celluclay was actually rather easy.

Size reference with a 2 oz bottle of paint. This is the color I used on him. He makes me happy.

Latest Tip-In Journal Page

This particular page had me in panic mode. I had already done a page spread for her in the other tip-in swap and basically I had...nothing. No ideas, no sense of where to go or what to do.
We even got an extra week with which to work on this round, (for me that meant an extra week to obsess over what to make). It was a long hard road it was. I was at work one day when the inspiration started to come. I'm not sure from where but I quickly sketched out my little dancing guy. Wait, he doesn't look very much like a guy, he doesn't even look the way I wanted him to.
Gah! I decided to run with it anyway and see what happened. Well then he started looking like a pear with the colors I wanted to use on him and his weird little "pear" shaped body. I think he's kinda cute anyway and that's when I decided to "attempt" to make him a rock instead.
That's when Rocks and Roll was born.Of course the cheeky red big eyed bird had to dance. And dance he did. I am very pleased with my pear shaped rocks but little did I know that everyone would assume that they were noses. Noses! Ha! I didn't see that one coming.
In the midst of working on my inchies I felt I would be amiss in not including some inchies on this page. Three of them to exact depicting the saga of that cheeky red monkey, the big eyed bird. Close, Closer, Closest

Altoid Tin Swap with a Star Wars feel

I know I know, this swap was over 6 months ago but I just uncovered my long lost camera with all my pictures of this swap (and many other great pictures, 1036 to be exact!).


I have always drooled over some of the altoid tins that have been created and really wanted one of my own. More importantly, I wanted an excuse to make an altoid tin and yup, you guessed it, I needed the motivation of an organized swap to do it!



Needless to say I get paired up with the intrepid organizer Kishcrafts. She who makes the most brilliant polymer clay cakes and such. I had such fear. Then I saw one of her themes, Star Wars! You gotta be kidding me! *total Star Wars geek I am* Oh, this is awesome! Not only do I get to try my hand at an altoid tin but I get to use Star Wars as my theme...yippeee!
Wookie bag

Mouth open.

I actually was going to make two of him because I thought he was so cool but he ended up being difficult and I got side tracked with him and then when I finished I vowed to never go there again. No pattern, just winged it. He was so frustrating but he turned out so uber cool!

Paper Mache:

I've always loved the idea of paper mache. Have all the material and tools for it but never really played around with it. Now I have the perfect excuse for it. I HAVE to make a mini model of the Millenium Falcon...right?

I made it out of foamboard first, a partial used sheet I found at work in the trash. I glued strip after strip of newspaper on it and then sanded and carved my little heart out. Painting it was fun and I used my much bigger model of the Falcon for the details. I even added little magnets to the bottom for this effect:

Yes, the magnets make it magnetically a part of the tin! On the floating Cloud City.

The bottom of the tin:

I used see beads along the bottom of the tin to keep it raised up so as not to scratch the picture.

My "favorite" picture!

Here's the interior shot:This is my favorite scene in the movie!

My partner also wanted to have a bunch of buttons should she get paired up with someone in the 'know'

I 'did' just buy a button making machine didn't I. I made as many buttons as would fit in the tin...and a few more than that too 'cause you never know when you might need some Star Wars buttons.

Inchies done and Rubber Stamps too

I really really should have scanned these but I made the mistake of sorting them out and then finding my long lost camera and decided not to un sort them and take a picture. I probably need a good photo editing software that I can totally understand how to use to make my picture look better, or at the very least...cropped.

Out of the 88 from the uncut sheet of inchies 45 of them, seen here, are now winging there way out to new homes. Some of the ones I kept were because I felt they still needed...something. Others I kept because I wanted them and felt I couldn't live without them, hehe. A couple more I kept because in the beaded state that they were in I felt they wouldn't travel well without better protection and there were other flatter ones that would. See the logic?

I love doing inchies and I really need to do lots more inchies but because of my crafty ADD I'm on to the next BIG thing.

Rubber stamps.

The rat stamp was the very first one I did. About a year ago. I did him wrong, cut where I wasn't supposed to and made his hand all wonky. I gave up and filed him away.

Then I joined a rubber stamp swap on Craftster so now I'm forced to do them. Now I need to learn what I did wrong so I can do the new ones the right way. Happily my simple rooster (bottom right) turned out just the way I wanted him to and he was fun to boot! Oh, I dived right in then. The letter 'A' (backwards) was next and for one of my swap partners. This one was a little trickier. Hmmm, I think I need a magnifier lamp to be able to see this well enough to do it right and 120 dollars later I was proved right! Now I can do a little more intricate type designs. My next partner likes unicorns so of course I do a pegasus *headslap* No matter, maybe I can use him for something later! The unicorn turned out great and I love him, I hope she does too. My third partner didn't give me much info to go on so I made her something rather random that I thought would be useful on anything and not so specific. That's the design above the glasses. I LOVE the way it turned out! I never would have imagined I could carve anything so intricate. Dang eyesight getting as old as I am!

The rest of the stamps were just because I could. Who couldn't resist a cool pair of shades and the dragonfly is always a must have. I did have one more stamp I managed to do...the big eyed bird, but he had a rather 'unfortunate' accident. Never fear, I shall persevere and carve another one!